I know how my Mom could cook, so this had to be ‘only one of many’ tables laid out in preparation for the party.

Prior to Rome, if any us had broken a glass, plate, or whatever, it wouldn’t have been a good thing, right?

Well when this happened during 1953, it was met with a ‘no problem’, and then she would quietly say, “Great, we’ve got some more!!”

I was SO CONFUSED!!

~
Well it turns out, my Mom had heard of an Italian tradition, possibly/PROBABLY no longer followed, where the broken glass would be saved during the year, and be discarded at the sound of the New Year church bells. This of course would signify out with the old, in with the new, with hopes for even a better New Year.

And when I’m talking about discarding, I’m not talking about discarding into a dumpster, but ‘out the window’/ ‘off the balcony’!!

By this time, I was already (still am for that matter) in love with the Italians, but to see glass being thrown out of four and five story windows to the streets below. WOW!!!

Note: a few hours later, the streets were all clean, and you would never have known it had happened.

German politicians have reacted furiously to this front page in the Italian daily Il Giornale with its headline “Fourth Reich” above a picture of Chancellor Angela Merkel raising her hand in a vaguely fascist salute.

The paper is owned by the brother of Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the article – published on Friday – was written by its editor-in-chief, Alessandro Sallusti.

It says: “Since yesterday, Italy is no longer in Europe, it is in the Fourth Reich.”It argues that Germany has won while Italy, Europe and the euro have lost. It blames Merkel for failing to allow the European central bank to assist the Italian economy.

Il Giornale has been at the centre of controversy with Germany before. Two months ago, after Italy beat Germany in the Euro 2012 football semi-final, the paper published a picture of Merkel under the headline “Ciao, ciao culona” (Bye bye lard arse).

The paper has also laid into Italy’s prime minister Mario Monti – who replaced Berlusconi – for not doing enough to stand up to Germany. It compared him to the appeasing British prime minister Neville Chamberlain who declared in 1938 he had “secured peace in our time” after meeting Adolf Hitler.

Herbert List (October 7, 1903–April 4, 1975) was a German photographer, who worked for magazines, including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Life, and was associated with Magnum Photos.

His austere, classically-posed black-and-white compositions, particularly of male nudes, taken in Italy and Greece have been highly formative for modern photography, with contemporary fashion photographers like Herb Ritts being clearly influenced by List’s style. He is also noted for his erotic street photography.

Monte Verità (literally Hill of Truth) is a hill (350 meters or 1,150 feet high) in Ascona (Swiss canton of Ticino), which has served as the site of many different Utopian and cultural events and communities since the beginning of the twentieth century.